Tucker Carlson Net Worth (Money & Salary)

What is Tucker Carlson’s net worth and salary?

An American political commentator, author, and TV personality, Tucker Carlson boasts a net worth of $50 million. His tenure as a CNN commentator spanned from 2000 to 2005, followed by hosting a show on MSNBC from 2005 until 2008. In 2009, he joined Fox News, where he began hosting the nightly talk show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in 2016.

Tucker was dismissed from Fox News on April 24, 2023, a shocking move that occurred just a week after Fox settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. Interestingly, Don Lemon was also unexpectedly let go from CNN on the same day.

Apart from his television career, Tucker co-founded The Daily Caller, a popular website. He’s also a columnist and published author. On May 9, 2023, Tucker revealed plans for a new show on Twitter, choosing to relinquish an estimated $25 million owed to him under his Fox News contract. The next section offers more insights into his business deals.

Salary & Fox Contract

At the time of his termination, Tucker Carlson was earning an annual salary of $10 million at Fox.

His salary jumped from $2 million to $6 million per year when he transitioned from a weekend correspondent to taking over the prime-time 8 pm slot previously held by Bill O’Reilly. Despite appearing to be a significant increase, O’Reilly had been earning $25 million, and Tucker quickly surpassed him in ratings.

Under that contract, Tucker remained until February 2021, when he signed a three-year extension that raised his salary to $10 million. This agreement also introduced a podcast featuring interviews from his show and monthly original content branded as “Tucker Carlson Originals.”

Leading up to his abrupt firing, Tucker was in discussions for another contract extension that would have secured his position at Fox until 2029.

What comes next for Tucker and Fox?

If Fox sought to avoid paying him the remaining amount of his contract ($10 million annually for another 2-3 years), they would need to demonstrate that Carlson was terminated for cause. Proving this could have allowed Fox to dismiss Carlson without any further payments.

Conversely, Fox might have wished to retain Tucker to prevent him from joining a competing network during the unexpired terms of his contract (2-3 years). Tucker could have chosen to continue receiving $10 million per year under his previous agreement but with restrictions on appearing on any rival networks, hosting podcasts, producing specials, or publicly criticizing his former employer.

And on May 9, 2023, the answer emerged!

Tucker decided to exit his Fox contract and pursue an independent path with a new show on Twitter. If he were owed $10 million per year for the approximately 2.5 years remaining on his Fox deal, he opted to forfeit $25 million in guaranteed payments to be released from his contract.

Early Life

Tucker was born in San Francisco but spent most of his childhood in Southern California. His father, Richard Warner Carlson, served as an LA news anchor and ambassador to the Seychelles. Tucker’s mother left the family when he was only six. At age 10, Richard remarried Patricia Caroline Swanson, who came from significant wealth due to her grandfather, Carl A. Swanson, founder of the Swanson frozen foods empire.

He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he completed his education with…

He earned a degree in history in 1991.

Success

His journalism career commenced in print, contributing to publications such as Policy Review and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. This led to opportunities as a columnist for magazines like Reader’s Digest and New York Magazine. Additionally, he has been featured in several newspapers and magazines including Esquire, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Daily Beast. Carlson’s entry into television began with his role as a host on the CNN panel discussion show Crossfire, where he typically represented the right-wing perspective.

During this time, his most significant moment came from a heated interview with comedian Jon Stewart, an event many analysts assert played a crucial role in the eventual cancellation of Crossfire. After this, Carlson secured positions at CNN’s main rivals, MSNBC, and most recently, Fox News.

For many years, Carlson became well-known not just for his sometimes unconventional conservative views but also for his distinct trademark bow tie, often dubbed “the Tucker Carlson look.”

In 2017, Tucker assumed the time slot previously occupied by Bill O’Reilly after O’Reilly’s dismissal from Fox News. Within a few years, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” emerged as the highest-rated show on Fox News, boasting an impressive average nightly audience of 3.4 million, surpassing the combined viewership of his CNN and MSNBC counterparts.

On April 24, 2023, Tucker shocked the media landscape by revealing his immediate departure from Fox News, with his final broadcast having occurred the preceding Friday, April 21.

Book Deal

Simultaneously with his rise at Fox News, Tucker inked a lucrative book deal reported to be worth $15 million, covering multiple titles. Carlson’s first publication, “Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News,” was released in 2003. He followed up in 2018 with “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution,” and in 2021, he published “The Long Slide: Thirty Years in American Journalism.”

Daily Caller

In 2010, Tucker and Neil Patel co-founded DailyCaller.com, a platform for right-wing news and opinions, which they marketed as a conservative alternative to The Huffington Post. In June 2020, Tucker sold his one-third stake in the company to Patel for an undisclosed sum.

Personal Life

Tucker has been married to Susan Andrews since 1991. They met and later wed at the chapel of St. George School, a boarding high school located in Middletown, Rhode Island. Together, they have four children. Additionally, Carlson is left-handed and dyslexic.

For almost a decade, Tucker and his brother Buckley have been involved in a legal dispute over their estranged mother’s estate. Their mother, Lisa Vaughn, was the beneficiary of an oil and gas partnership spanning a total of 70,000 acres of land in rural central California. Initially, the brothers believed the royalty rights held little value, estimating them at around $125,000. However, they later discovered these rights were worth at least $2.5 million.

A lawsuit was filed against their late mother’s estate, which specifically allocated each brother a token amount of $1. As of this writing, that lawsuit remains reportedly unsettled.

Real Estate

The Carlsons divide their time between a residence in Florida and a house situated on his family’s property in Maine. In 2011, Tucker and Susan downsized from a $4 million home to a $2 million property in the Kent neighborhood of Washington D.C. They sold the latter for $2.04 million in November 2017.

In July 2017, they purchased another house in the same Kent neighborhood for $3.895 million. They placed this home on the market in July 2020 for a slight increase at $3.95 million and managed to sell it within a month at the asking price. Reportedly, their decision to sell stemmed from an incident where a group of protestors came onto their driveway and rang the doorbell.

In early 2020, a home was bought by Tucker on Gasparilla Island, Florida, for $2.9 million. Then, in mid-2022, they acquired a second home on Gasparilla for $5.5 million. Both properties, which are adjacent to each other, belong to a community known as Boca Grande.